Scientists secretly vaccinated more than 2,000 children in religious-run homes in suspected illegal drug trials, it emerged today.

Old medical records show that 2,051 children and babies in Irish care homes were given a one-shot diphtheria vaccine for international drugs giant Burroughs Wellcome between 1930 and 1936.

There is no evidence that consent was ever sought, nor any records of how many may have died or suffered debilitating side-effects as a result.

The scandal was revealed as Irish premier, Enda Kenny, ordered ministers to see whether there are more mass baby graves after
the discovery that 800 infants may be buried in a septic tank outside a former
mother and baby home in Tuam, Co. Galway.

Children at Sean Ross Abbey in Tipperary are thought to have been used in secret drug trials in the 1930s

Children's homes are under the spotlight since it emerged that 796 babies may be buried at the former mother and baby home at Tuam, Co. Galway - Enda Kenny has ordered officials to see if other mass graves exist

The Irish premier has ordered his officials to examine the possibility that there may be other mass graves, too

The Taioseach intervened from the United States
yesterday to say that he had ordered his officials to 'see what the
scale is, what's involved here, and whether this is isolated or if there
are others around the country that need to be looked at.'

Michael Dwyer, of Cork University’s
School of History, found the child vaccination data by trawling
through tens of thousands of medical journal articles and archive
files.

He discovered that the trials were carried out before the vaccine was made available for
commercial use in the UK.

Homes
where children were secretly tested included Bessborough, in Co. Cork
and Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea, Co. Tipperary, both of which are at the centre of
the mass baby graves scandal.

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Other institutions where children may also have been vaccinated include Cork orphanages St Joseph’s Industrial School for Boys, run by the Presentation Brothers, and St Finbarr’s Industrial School for Girls, run by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd.

In Dublin, it is believed that children for the trials came from St Vincent’s Industrial School, Goldenbridge, St Joseph’s School for Deaf Boys, Cabra, and St Saviours’s Dominican Orphanage.

But Mr
Dwyer said: 'What I have found is just the tip of a very
large and submerged iceberg.

'The fact that no record of these trials can be found in the
files relating to the Department of Local Government and Public Health,
the Municipal Health Reports relating to Cork and Dublin, or the
Wellcome Archives in London, suggests that vaccine trials would not have
been acceptable to government, municipal authorities, or the general
public.

'However,
the fact that reports of these trials were published in the most
prestigious medical journals suggests that this type of human
experimentation was largely accepted by medical practitioners and
facilitated by authorities in charge of children’s residential
institutions.'

Horror: The scandal of the babies in the mass grave was discovered by local historian, Catherine Corless

Innocence: Academic Michael Dwyer found out about the secret drugs trials by going through old medical records - children from the Sean Ross Abbey home in Tipperary, pictured, are thought to have been involved

A
spokesman for GSK – formerly Wellcome – said: 'The
activities that have been described to us date back over 70 years and,
if true, are clearly very distressing.

'We
would need further details to investigate what actually took place, but
the practices outlined certainly don’t reflect how modern clinical
trials are carried out. We conduct our trials to the same high
scientific and ethical standards, no matter where in the world they are
run.'

A
spokeswoman for the Sisters of Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, the
order that ran Bessborough and Sean Ross Abbey, said that like GSK, they
would also welcome an independent inquiry.

Fianna
Fáil leader Micheál Martin called on the Irish government to add vaccine
trials into the investigative remit of any inquiry into the mother and
baby homes.

He said: 'We need to start with an independent investigation
into the mother and baby homes which would be followed by a wider
separate investigation into the vaccine testing.'

Historian
Catherine Corless, whose discovery of the suspected mass baby grave at
Tuam was revealed by the Mail earlier this week, said her study of death
records for the St Mary's home run by Catholic Bon Secours nuns from
1925-1961 pointed to the existence of the mass grave.

Children's homes in Ireland were often the only place where a woman pregnant out of wedlock could go

Children were looked after by nuns and often adopted abroad - now it seems they were used in drugs trials, too

The Irish PM interrupted a
trade visit to San Francisco to order an inquiry in the Tuam home and others, saying that Dublin must decide
what is the 'best thing to do in the interest of dealing with yet
another element of our country's past.'

St
Mary's was one of several such 'mother and baby' homes for 'fallen
women' who had become pregnant outside marriage in early 20th century
Ireland.

Another
such institution was the Sean Ross Abbey in Tipperary, was where Philomena
Lee gave up her son for adoption in the 1950s. Her story was made into
the Oscar-nominated film 'Philomena' last year.

The
'mother and baby' homes accommodated women who were ostracised from their own families and had nowhere else to turn.

Under
conservative Catholic teaching of the time, children born outside of
marriage were not baptised and were therefore denied a Catholic burial
on consecrated ground.

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Thousands of children in Irish care homes at centre of 'baby graves scandal' were used in secret vaccine trials in the 1930s